In a premise plagiarized shamelessly from the John Cusack-Kate Beckinsale starrer Serendipity, Priya leaves it to destiny to decide if they’re meant to be together. The problem with this film is that it’s lacking in basic logic, and that its characters are complete stereotypes. Add to that the fact that Kaushik’s treatment is extremely outdated even for a film that was meant to be released five years ago. I’m going with one-and-a-half out of five for director Satish Kaushik’s Milenge Milenge. If you’re thinking of checking it out for Shahid and Kareena’s chemistry after Jab We Met, I might have a word of advice for you – Don’t!

MILENGE MILENGE starts off like one of those countless love stories, with mandatory songs and lovey-dovey scenes aplenty, but the twist minutes before the interval is so well executed that it suddenly raises the bar of the film. Naturally then, you expect the post-interval portions to charter a new path. The second half has its share of engaging moments, but, very frankly, it tends to get repetitive and melodramatic as well. The entire track of a particular Rs. 50 currency note and the book with Kareena’s name and phone number on it, although novel, hasn’t been portrayed too effectively. Even the finale — when Shahid reaches out to Kareena — isn’t convincing. Like I pointed out earlier, what binds the film together is the chemistry between the lead pair and a few charming moments.

you could blame it on the plot which has nothing new to offer. Now that’s almost criminal in an age when even the ordinary love story has been re-written in new-age Bollywood. Who talks about `Someone, Somewhere, specially for me’ and consults tarrot card readers (or even, Paul, the Octopus) when it comes to love, aaj kal! But with outdated choreography, college humour, couture and a minus-the-thump music score (Himesh Reshammiya), this love story doesn’t have the turn-of-the-century zing that has entered most of Bollywood’s pyaar-mohabbat pulp fiction. So what’s the bottomline? Milenge-Milenge ends up as a might-have-been, iffy affair. Watch it `IF’ you still dig the Shahid-Kareena jodi which re-defined the word ‘chemistry’ in Jab We Met.

Unlike the Hollywood original which essentially highlights the efficacy of romantic impulses and the contribution of New York City in amplifying it to a dramatic scale, Milenge Milenge concocts a hotchpotch of contrived situations and tedious stock characters to drive the point. And that means enduring slobbering daddies, blabbering canteen chiefs, pestering, jobless pals, excitable Parsi aunties, cacophonous store managers and garrulous book-selling chacha types.There’s nostalgia and there are forgotten chapters. And so, unless you’re the type that still harbours ridiculous hopes of a Jennifer Aniston-Brad Pitt reunion, Milenge Milenge will strike you as obsolete and expendable as Kareena’s Nokia handset in the movie.

The lead pair of the film is isolated for years and all of sudden wants to find each other frantically without having any contact details of their partner. Had there been a similar scenario in the current context they could have effortlessly traced each other to their doorsteps through social networking websites. In that sense, this film delayed by almost half a decade, appears unbelievable in today’s times. Not that Milenge Milenge would have been received much favorably back then since the entire plot is lifted from John Cusack – Kate Beckinsale’s 2001 Hollywood film Serendipity.Watch it only if you are just interested to see Kareena Kapoor when the term size zero wasn’t coined. Else Milenge Milenge doesn’t score too much above zero.

The defects in the screenplay are too many to be overlooked. Besides, in today’s age and time, it seems rather unbelievable that two young people can’t track one another down. It is because of the above weaknesses in the script that the audience does not experience the high it should, in the climax. Overall, despite some genuinely good moments in the film, the screenplay looks like a job hurriedly done, often without proper application of mind. Dialogues should’ve been more weighty. The film has taken over five years after completion, to be released, and the staleness shows, especially because Shahid Kapoor’s looks have changed over these years and so have fashions.